The world is faced with an epidemic of metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. This is due to changes in dietary habits and the decrease in physical activity. Exercise is usually part of the prescription, the first line of defense, to prevent or treat metabolic disorders. However, we are still learning how and why exercise provides metabolic benefits in human health. This open access volume focuses on the cellular and molecular pathways that link exercise, muscle biology, hormones and metabolism. This will include novel “myokines” that might act as new therapeutic agents in the future.

Though physiological ecology has been a discipline since the 1950s, McNab redresses a perceived absence of a theoretical framework with a comparative, inductive approach to studying vertebrate evolution and ecology. He discusses the patterns and limits of adaptation to the environment, acclimation to temperature variation and material exchange with the environment, and the energetics of locomotion and growth. The final section treats the significance of energetics for population ecology and distribution. Includes a taxonomic as well as subject index. Suitable for advanced students and researchers in the biological and ecological sciences. The Gainesville, FL-based author is referred to by the foreword writer as a keen naturalist, but his credentials are not stated. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.

Torpor or heterothermy corresponds to a state of depressed metabolism and is associated with specific metabolic, cellular and molecular adaptations that often occur on a seasonal basis. Yet the exact mechanisms and functioning of these changes are poorly understood. Interestingly, the potential of such extraordinary animal adaptation for human and animal health as well as other biomedical considerations has raised particular attention especially in the last decade. The strong metabolic and physiological adaptations of heterotherms can be of particular inspiration for current biomedical and pathological situations (e.g., obesity and related diseases, cardiovascular and metabolic dysfunctions, ischemia-reperfusion injuries, immune depression) and for the health and longevity of animal species, including humans.